March 8th

Caught up with webloggers I knew and maitre d' of the Indian Bloggers' List. On her blog, she referred to me as "the talented Mr. Nandi" - whether she meant it as a compliment or as a comparison to the murderer and impostor from the movie, I don't know. We met at Barista's Bandra - the very venue of vice. Yes, I know I'm truly cursed. But is it my fault if these monopolistic coffee makers set up shop at the most easy-to-locate places? Anyway, here's the catch: we met at Barista's - i.e., we only used it as a trivial landmark to coordinate things. In other words, they lost a potential customer. Yes! Retribution at last!

On the 5th, I met the inimitable Yazad Jal, weblogger extraordinaire and founder of Praja.

We met at Victoria Terminus, where Yazad showed me around the place - Yazad knows the area like it was his own backyard. Saw the many Victorian-era buildings around the place, including the Municipal Corporation building, and the hip-looking Slimes Of India building. After some discussion, we decided to go to the Barista cafe at Planet M. Regular readers of this blog would recall my recent misadventure with the cafe chain. It was my will power against Yazad's power to convince. Considering the fact that he runs an entire foundation by convincing people to give him truckloads of money, he's obviously very good at it; and hence we left my resolve at the token counter along with my bag and went up the stairs for our cuppa coffee. I guess Fate read my blog and decided to align the planets to humble me. The only upside to this incident is that it was Yazad who paid the bill, and so I wasn't directly patronizing them, Yazad was. Hence I shamelessly acquit myself on a technicality.